Bold Moves and New Beginnings: Kerri Roberts on Leaving Corporate America for a Life of Purpose

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Living the Dream Podcast with Curveball. If you believe, you can achieve. Welcome to the Living the Dream with Curveball Podcast. A show where I interview guests that teach, motivate, and inspired. Today's guest is Gary Roberts, a former corporate HR executive who has been more than two decades helping me in with all kinds of things, including finance and insurance, and mergers, and higher education, and acquisition. And you know, on the outside, I was living a successful life. And on the inside, internally, it might have felt right on the outside, but it didn't feel right on the inside. So what she did is she made a bold pivot, leaving corporate America, going to a hundred and forty-three-acre farm in rural Missouri, and starting her own business, helping small businesses with their people operation without needing an HR department. So we're going to be talking to Carrie about her story and her bold move and everything that she's up to and gonna be up to. So, Carrie, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_01 1:25

Yeah, thanks so much for having me, Curtis. I appreciate it. And you've got a perfect audio voice. It's so good.

SPEAKER_00 1:31

Well, I appreciate it. Why don't you start off by telling everybody a little bit about yourself?

SPEAKER_01 1:35

Yeah, so that is a big part of my story, um, what you explained. So grew up in rural Missouri, played a little college ball after high school, um, tried to live on the coast for a little bit, thought I was gonna be the kid who could, you know, leave home, was gone for a semester, decided I'm I'm a true Midwest girl. So came back, went to Mizzou, which is in Columbia, Missouri, and ended up staying in Columbia for about 20 years. And once I graduated, went on and got my master's after I'd worked a couple of years and really established a solid professional career in Columbia. Um, spent years in distribution, in finance, higher education, insurance, and then MA, like you had mentioned. And throughout that entire journey, I was just like so many people. I thought, you know, the bigger the team, the more you manage, the more money you make, the more successful you are. It was just this ladder that I was constantly climbing. And, you know, it's tough for anybody, but as a female, I found myself the only female in most executive teams. And, you know, there's dynamics that come along with that. I had a baby along the way and immediately got a nanny because I wanted to focus on my work and just a lot of choices that I made along the way. And about six years ago, my husband and I started talking about, you know, we'd both become executives in teams and um had kind of reached that thing that we thought we wanted to reach flying private, luxury cars, private school for our kid, country club life. You know, we we had this picture in our mind of the the Louis Vuitton and all the things, and we had reached that. And I was like, dang, this is just not um not what I thought it was going to be. And not that it wasn't a blessing, and I'm really grateful that we got there because I think I always wanted to see what that was like. I would have always thought that that's what I needed to reach. And I don't take it lightly that I did, and I am grateful that God put me on that path. But I started thinking, you know, maybe this isn't it for us, which was a huge paradigm shift. And so it took about three years. We bought this farm. We come out here on the weekends. We thought this would be like a weekend spot that we could just chill. It was a few hours away from the city we lived in. And over time, it was like the heart just kept, you know, holding us here a little bit longer. We were leaving Sunday afternoons and then Sunday nights, and then we were leaving Monday morning to get our kid to school and us to work. And we just decided we wanted to make a go of it. And I think for a lot of people, that's too big of a shift to swallow. But we both just agreed it's not a prison sentence. We can change our minds if we get out here and it's too inconvenient, it's too hard. We're not gonna be too prideful to say this wasn't the right thing for us. And so we left it all. We sold our house and um built a house out here on the farm and quit our corporate jobs. I sold my shares and started out our own. And it was wild. I mean, I'm not gonna lie, it was a it was a big undertaking to change our friendship circles, to change our geographic location, to change our child from a private charter school to a rural school. You know, there was just a lot of change. Left our church, had to find a new one, just a lot of that. So, you know, would I say it was the easiest thing I ever did? No, but I am so grateful we did it. We've been living here for about three years now. My business is a little over three years old, and I'm so grateful we did it when we did, because it was, it was never going to be an easy time, but it was always going to be worth it.

SPEAKER_00 5:09

Well, you know, walking away from a 20-year career takes a lot of courage. Uh, so what what other fears, you know, that did you have to you guys have to overcome when you made that leap?

SPEAKER_01 5:19

I'd say, you know, I hate to admit this, but the biggest one was the financial insecurity. Even though we had built a pretty decent nest egg, we'd made good choices, still going from, you know, I was a K1, I was on a salary, and then I had variable comp and I was making really good money. And um, I went to zero, you know, and I had never really been in sales, even though I had led sales teams. And I had never run a startup, even though I had been a chief operating officer. There's a lot of things that were exposed to me that I maybe had confidence in that was misplaced confidence because of my um my success in my executive roles. And so I truly started over. It was very raw, it was very vulnerable. And without having that, you know, regular money hitting the bank account every other week or once a month, it was like you better get on the treadmill and run, you know, and really, really have to focus. And it's not just focusing on business, it's getting keeping myself mentally healthy, getting the sleep that I need, fueling my body, keeping myself fit. I'm in my mid-40s. And so there were a lot of things I recognized moving into business for myself that were exposed that I had to work on. And all of my fears just kind of came to the surface, you know, the money stuff, I had to work on it, making sure that I was fit at this age. I had a lot to work on. I had kind of dug myself a hole with drinking and, you know, just high levels of stress and cortisol. There were a lot of things focusing on my work more than on my marriage, focusing on my work more than my motherhood. And so a lot of those things got exposed when we changed our life. And I've just had to kind of grin and bear it and work through it.

SPEAKER_00 7:01

Well, speaking of that, when you first walked on the farm, talk about some of the assumptions about yourself that were immediately challenged.

SPEAKER_01 7:10

Yeah, I I was definitely faced with realizing I was far more materialistic than I thought I was. Um, I was raised really simply. I was raised on a farm. And so I always thought, you know, my lifestyle afforded me all of these nice things, but these nice things weren't me. And um, I had gotten way more accustomed to them than I realized. I had liked going into, you know, the nice restaurant and them knowing what my drink order was and what table I preferred, and you know, getting up to the front of the list. I had liked um all of my nice designer things and my lifestyle kind of called for it. You know, I was going to balls and galas and all these things. And when we moved, I sold a lot of my stuff, but I I held on to quite a bit too, because it was part of my identity that I didn't realize that at the time, but it certainly was. And once I got out here on the farm, I realized like nobody cares. Nobody cares about your sparkly jewelry or your fancy things. Matter of fact, those seem frivolous and wasteful when you're living in a simple rural area. And um, those come across more as offensive versus impressive, like they do in the city, or at least what I had thought was impressive in the city. And so it's just been a great unwinding um of realizing who I thought I was and then who I really am and what's actually important to me.

SPEAKER_00 8:32

Well, you know, a lot of people talk about starting over, but never do it. Um, and I know in your case, you you you were talking about how you wanted to uh start over. So w w what separates um those who just talk about it versus you, you know, you guys put action to it.

SPEAKER_01 8:50

Yeah, I would say one of the comments that I've heard the most, um, which really grinds my gears, is well, it must be nice. You know, it must be nice that you guys were able to do that, and um must be nice that you all were able to make that happen. And um that kind of blows my mind because it was a lot of work to make this change. It was sacrifice, it was tough, it was grueling, it was hard on our kid, it was hard on our marriage. There were a lot of things that were big pivots. Gosh, when we first announced to people that we were moving, I had people say, you know, which one of you is having an affair? You know, what are y'all running from? Because people just didn't understand it. I had to be okay with being misunderstood. And I think most people would put wanting to be understood or known over their own hopes and dreams at the end of the day. I I know most people would be like, oh no, that's not true about me, but when push comes to shove and you have to make a tough call, most people care a whole lot about what other people think.

SPEAKER_00 9:51

That was gonna be my next question. Um, you know, you walked away from all that stability and a stable paycheck and everything. So what um did you learn about risk that most people misunderstand?

SPEAKER_01 10:04

About risk or rest?

SPEAKER_00 10:06

About risk. The risk involved in you know walking away from the stable stability.

SPEAKER_01 10:12

Yeah, there were there were a lot of risks. Um I think the money part, you know, we saw that coming. It was tough, it was scary, but we saw that coming. What I didn't see coming was not really fitting in to the rural community. I thought we would be more easily welcomed. And when you're living in a rural area, most people grew up in that rural area and they married each other and they stuck around by and large, not everybody, but largely, or they married someone from that area, and um, we just weren't really welcomed into the community because even though we are living a more simple life now, we have a unique life, you know, like we've both been corporate executives, we've both got, you know, multiple college degrees and we travel a lot, we just live life a little bit differently. And so um that part was hard building relationships in the area, but then also seeing how many relationships that just fizzled out. You know, there's times where you've got circumstantial relationships. You're friends with the people you work with, your friends are the people you go to church with, you're friends with the parents at your kids' school, your friends are the people at your country club. But when you leave all those areas, how many of those friendships are true friendships that would go the distance? And what we learned was not a lot. You know, when you can't get somebody a job, when you can't uh donate to their nonprofit, or when you're not doing that anymore, when you're not sponsoring a table at their ball or gala, they quit calling you. And when we moved out here, we really whittled down, really refined our friendship list. Some of it was refined for us because the phone stopped ringing, you know, the text stopped coming over time. Some of it was us realizing how many circumstantial or situational relationships we had and that those weren't people we wanted to invest in any longer because they weren't living an aligned lifestyle to us or focused on their marriage or parenting or things like we were, and we just didn't have as much in common. So that was probably the thing that was the biggest surprise to me and probably the hardest pill to swallow. It took a long time to to settle into that and realize like it's okay. This is the season of life that we're in.

SPEAKER_00 12:14

Well, what did your corporate HR experience teach you about entrepreneurship and what were some of the lessons that you learned that made um your corporate experience uh some of the stuff be relevant uh when it comes to small businesses?

SPEAKER_01 12:29

Yeah, so a couple of things on that. One is I spent a lot of time alone being an HR executive or an operations executive. You really can't have true deep friendships with the people you work with because people want to gossip with you, right? They want to talk about this, that, and the other. And I couldn't, I had to be a vault. I knew a lot of information and the inner workings and personnel information and salary information, obviously, and disciplinary actions and struggles and things like that. And so I had to be walled off to a large extent in my corporate roles. And so being a little bit isolated, you're because you are isolated as an entrepreneur in many ways. I mean, you can join networks and you know, online communities and things like that. But in a lot of ways, you're you're believing in your business more than anyone else's, and you're kind of you're going at it alone from the beginning. And so that didn't feel that foreign to me. That felt pretty similar, even though I had worked in teams for a really long time. I had always felt a little bit of a lone ranger. I couldn't truly like chummy up to colleagues like a lot of other people could because of the um sensitivity of my role. That's one part of it. Second part is when I went out on my own and started serving these small to mid-sized businesses, a lot of them felt like, oh, they weren't going to be able to afford me because I've got all this corporate experience. But the reality of it is I started this fractional type of work so I could be affordable to these small businesses. And I don't care if it's a business of eight people or 8,000 people. The people are people. You know, HR is HR. It doesn't matter if it's construction or a law firm. There's nuances to all of these different businesses. But the reality of it is they're all trying to recruit good people, they're all trying to retain good people, and they're all trying to figure out how to get everyone to row the oars in the same direction or, you know, pedal the bike in the same direction and have nobody jamming on the brakes. And that's pretty similar across industry. And so it happens really regularly. You know, I'll have a small business client, they'll say, I don't want to become corporate. And I'm like, I know, I'm not gonna try to make you corporate. I just want to make it a seamless employee experience for you. And you're gonna be a better place to work. And because of that, it's gonna be easier for you to sleep at night. I want to make your life easier as a small business owner. And so that has definitely translated the isolation and then also realizing that whether you're at a big corporation or a small business, you're still trying to get a team to move in the same direction.

SPEAKER_00 15:01

Well, what you learned about leadership after seeing it from the perspective of you know, corporate the boardroom versus, you know, uh entrepreneur who's starting a business from the ground up.

SPEAKER_01 15:15

Yeah, gosh, that entrepreneur has to be gritty. But the corporate boardroom is very gritty as well. It's kind of two different ways. The the entrepreneur has to be very resourceful and um, you know, very mindful of their PL. Whereas the board executive or the corporate executive, they can usually because the budget's bigger, they've got a little more space for mistakes. But at the same time, they've got politics and bureaucracy that as an entrepreneur, you can, you know, you can stick a middle finger up to that. Like it just doesn't matter anymore. Nobody's you don't have to impress people in the same way. Yes, you've got to get clients and you know, all of those things, but you don't have a colleague telling you that they're gunning for your job because it's your business. So there's grittiness to both levels. It's just a different level of grit or a different type of grit that you have to bring to the table.

SPEAKER_00 16:14

Well, for someone out there listening who might be stuck in a successful but unfulfilling career, how can they tell whether it's just a temporary frustration or a deeper calling for change?

SPEAKER_01 16:26

Yeah, I would say entrepreneurship is not for everyone. Um, I'm gonna say it scares everyone. So it's not like, oh, you have no fears. That means you should run toward it because I certainly had fears, but it is an everyday grind. Um, since I launched my business, I have sent an email at 5 28 a.m. every single Monday without fail. I have not missed it. Now, granted, I'm scheduling it, I'm not waking up and sending it at that time, but every Friday I write that email so it goes out on Monday mornings. I have a podcast as well. I do solo episodes on HR topics, and I have recorded an episode and put it out every single Tuesday since that show launched without missing. I show up on social media, I'm just consistent. Um, and if you like the ebb and flow of corporate life, meaning, you know, some seasons are busy, some aren't, but your money pretty much stays the same. That's not entrepreneurship. If you're not hustling, the money's not coming in the door for the most part. All of us want to make easy money and we want to talk about residual income. And I've got real estate investments as well. You know, we all want to make money without working, but the reality of it is the real money comes in when you're putting your nose down and you're working. And so it's not for everyone. But if you, if you're the type of person that sees other businesses, whether you're in a restaurant or you're in a store or you're in a service-based business and you think, man, if I was running that, I would do that differently. I would, I would do it this way. If I could run this business or I could own this business, then I would do X, Y, and Z to make this more efficient. You might have that entrepreneurial spirit where you want to go out and you want to try it your own. I mean, the reality of it is when you start your own business, what you're saying to the world is, I what I'm doing might not be the first time someone's ever done it, but I think I can do it in a different or unique or better way. And that's a bold, that's a bold statement to make. But if you feel that way, then it's a path to chase. And I can't, I can't say never, I don't say never about anything because you know, life changes, but I don't have a desire. I can't imagine right now stepping back into a W-2 position where someone tells me when, why, and how I'm gonna do my role. Um, I can't imagine that now, now that I've gotten a taste of this and I've been doing it for three years, but it is certainly not for everyone. It's something to do. Soul searching, I recommend journaling and, you know, talking to a therapist or doing tapping or, you know, whatever your modalities are to really get in, learn your motivations, and figure out if you've, you know, if you've truly got it in you. But the truth is anyone can try. And if you try it for a few years and it just absolutely flops, go back to corporate. Like, who cares what other people think? If someone has something to say about that, they're not the ones paying your bills. So to me, it was worth a shot to see if I could succeed at it. And I I knew I would deep down, but it definitely uh still was a hustle.

SPEAKER_00 19:22

Well, what's the name of your podcast?

SPEAKER_01 19:25

It's called Don't Waste the Chaos, and uh that name came from years ago. Um, I was sitting in a boardroom, and this company had brought me in uh as the C COO, and they wanted me to make some change, and so I was making a lot of change, and I used to call it shaking the snow globe because I didn't want it to be totally disruptive sounding, but that's exactly what it was. And I was changing tech, I was changing organizational structure, um, I was changing expectations, performance management, all of that. And it was really messing with some people, you know, some underperformers didn't like it, some top performers were nervous, you know, there was a lot going on. And uh we sat down as a board, as an executive team, and uh one of the one of my colleagues said, I don't know, you know, like everybody was happier before, and um, we're just we're really messing with people, and this has gotten really hard. And I said, you know what, I totally get it, and it could be easier. We could just go back to the way it was before, but to me, that's not gonna get us to the future. And I knew at some point we were probably going to try to sell, which we did end up selling majority share of the business. And so I said, Um, you know, to me, it's already in a messy state. Don't waste the chaos of that. Like if you can push through it and see what's on the other side, if we just go back, we've literally wasted the hard work, the stress, the tears, you know, whatever it's been. And so I don't want to waste it. And so when I went out on my own, I decided I'd like to start a podcast. Um, I'm saying the same stuff over and over again to clients, right? Like small to mid-sized businesses. I'm constantly talking about what to do to build their HR foundation. They don't have people problems, they have systems problems by and large, how to handle those. And so I thought I'll start a podcast. And immediately I was like, I'm gonna call that podcast don't waste the chaos, because business is chaos. Leading people is chaos, making money is chaos, but not wasting the chaos that you're in and pushing through and seeing what's on the other side. It's kind of like when you strain a muscle, right? Like you're working in the gym, you're pushing that muscle to the max. But if you are taking your creatine and your protein and you're stretching well and hydrating, you're gonna end up with a bigger muscle on the other side. That muscle is not gonna get smaller by the work you're putting in. And so um, I'm thrilled that that was not a name that was taken as far as a show, and I got the URL and all of that. And it's been really fun. I've I've started airing it in um January of 2024.

SPEAKER_00 21:55

Congratulations.

SPEAKER_01 21:56

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 21:57

So everybody can keep up with everything that you're up to, though that's your contact info.

SPEAKER_01 22:01

That'd be great. Yeah. It's um so my YouTube channel is uh Carrie M Roberts and it's K-E-R-R-I-M Roberts. And my business website is salt and light advisors.com. I've got a personal website where I host my my podcast stuff and my book and I do speaking engagements. That's CarrieM Roberts.com. And I'm really active on LinkedIn as well.

SPEAKER_00 22:26

Salt and light advisors.com.

SPEAKER_01 22:30

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 22:31

Gotcha. We'll close us out with some final thoughts. Maybe if there was something I forgot to talk about that you would like to touch on, or any final thoughts you have for the listeners.

SPEAKER_01 22:40

You know, I guess the only the only thing that I would close with is so many people are concerned about failing. And the reality of it is if you look back in your life, you've you have already failed at a bunch of different things. Things have not gone your way, things have been hard, you've come through seasons that are challenging. And so why not? You know, why not push toward the thing that you've been dreaming about? Why not go all in and stay there and give it a true shot? And um, you know, there's nothing wrong with people seeing you in progress. I think so many of us only want to be seen when we've got the polished, you know, finished product of ourselves, but that's never going to happen. None of us are gonna get there. I mentioned earlier I'm in my mid-40s, and you know, I think when I was younger, I thought I'd be somewhere different in my mid-40s, maybe um know more of what I'm doing, but we're all winging it. That's one of the things I learned in corporate boardrooms is those people who were sitting to my right and to my left, they were guessing just as much as anybody else was. They were just trying to figure it out. They were relying on mentors, they were reading, they were listening to podcasts, they were trying to figure it out. It's a challenge for everybody at every level. And so why not throw your hat in the ring and see how far you can go?

SPEAKER_00 23:52

All right, ladies and gentlemen, thought and light advisors.com. Check out everything that Carrie's up to, and check out the Don't Waste the Chaos Show and follow rate review, share this episode to as many people as possible. There's a lot of people out there standing at that ledge and wanting to make that leap, and maybe Carrie can give them the encouragement or you know, make sure at least it's something they really want to do and it's for them. So please be sure to share this and also to keep up with all things living the dream, visit w dot curveball337.com and share the website of the show to everybody you know. Thank you for listening and supporting the show. And Carrie, thank you for all that you do, and thank you for joining me.

SPEAKER_01 24:37

Yeah, thanks for having me. It's been fun.

SPEAKER_00 24:40

For more information on the Living the Dream with Curveball Podcast, visit www.curveball337.com. Until next time, keep living the dream.